June 14, 2011

BECOMING PRAYER

In recent reading I have found some gems on prayer and want to share them with anyone reading this who has the same passion to go deeper with God until we no longer 'do' prayer but become a prayer He prays through and uses.

Thomas Merton in "New Seeds of Contemplation" describes this outworking in a wonderful way!

"......in all things, in your interior life and in your outward works for God, you desire only one thing, which is the fulfillment of His will.  If you do this, your activity will share the disinterested peace that you are able to find at prayer, and in the simplicity of the things you do men will recognize your peacefulness and will give glory to God.

It is above all in this silent and unconscious testimony to the love of God that the contemplative exercises his apostolate.  For the saint preaches sermons by the way he stands and the way he sits down and the way he picks things up and holds them in his hand.  The perfect do not have to reflect on the details of their actions.  Less and less conscious of themselves, they finally cease to be aware of themselves doing things, and gradually God begins to do all that they do, in them and for them, at least in the sense that the habit of His love has become second nature to them and informs all that they do with His likeness."

As we ponder this need for an unconscious rather than self-conscious outworking of His life in us I am compelled to give everything back into His hands and re-enter the place of surrender and trust.  My prayer becomes one of open-handed flexibility to His Way and His Will.

"To you Lord I give my heart, mind, soul and spirit, all of my life.  I am still, knowing that you ARE all You say You are. You are the source of ALL my life, and it is through You, from You, and in You that everything exists.  I am encompassed and enveloped in You, and I choose to surrender myself to all that was in Your heart when You created me, when You saw my unformed substance and knew both the beginning and end of my life, and everything in between."